Use of renewable energy has increased significantly in recent years due to environmental and economic concerns coupled with improvements in technology that have greatly increased the efficiency and cost per kilowatt (kW) of these systems.
Wind power has been harnessed for centuries, initially in mills and later for pumping water. More recently, wind turbines have been introduced that generate electricity. Improvements in material science and turbine design have increased the efficiency and decreased the cost per kW. However the approach still has certain drawbacks, including the dependence on variable environmental factors like adequate wind speed and the cost competitiveness with fossil fuels, particularly when environmental costs like pollution are not factored in.
Solar power has made great strides with the development of new photovoltaic materials which are less expensive to produce and are more efficient on a per area basis. Nevertheless, the generation of solar power is not yet cost-competitive (without factoring externalities such as pollution) with fossil fuels. In addition, this approach also relies on variable environmental factors (sunshine) which is not always available, for example at night, thus interrupting energy generation.
Co-locating solar and wind energy collection systems in a single plant should have certain advantages, for example, fewer interruptions in energy generation if sun and wind availability are not correlated at the plant location. In addition, if both solar and wind systems can be working simultaneously at least some of the time, co-location also permits greater energy generation per unit area of land and increased peak production per unit area of land, thus decreasing overall costs of production. Co-location may also reduce costs associated with maintenance due to economies of scale.
Accordingly, there is a need for a system that generates electrical power from renewable sources and that maximizes energy generation while minimizing interruptions due to environmental factors. There is also a need for a system that generates energy from renewable sources at an improved cost per kW.